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In a pair of tweets, Trump went after Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, who've criticized Trump on their MSNBC show "Morning Joe."

(Published Thursday, June 29, 2017)

President Donald Trump used base terms to ridicule the looks and temperament of a female MSNBC host on Thursday while she was on air, remarks that the cable network called "bullying."

In a pair of tweets, Trump went after Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, who've criticized Trump on their MSNBC show "Morning Joe." Trump claimed Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift" and said he refused to let her join him at his South Florida estate.

Some Republican politicians quickly expressed their displeasure with Trump's new tweets, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling his attack "not appropriate" and several senators saying it was beneath the office of the president. A spokeswoman for Trump defended the tweets as hitting back at constant criticism he receives from "Morning Joe."

"I heard poorly rated @Morning Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore)," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came ... to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

WH Spokeswoman Defends Trump’s Tweets About Brzezinski

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders fired back at reporters questioning President Donald Trump’s tweet about MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski on June 29, 2017. She said the president was fighting back against the media, adding that, “the only person I see a war on is this president and everybody that works for him.”

(Published Thursday, June 29, 2017)

The "Morning Joe" hosts spent time at the resort, a visit Scarborough said was to arrange a Trump interview.

It was the latest attack on a woman's looks from the president, who had to apologize during his campaign for lewd comments he made about women while taping an interview with "Access Hollywood" in 2005. In that tape he boasted of grabbing women by their genitals and said that "when you're a star ... you can do anything."

"I pledge to be a better man tomorrow," Trump said in an apology video.

The tweets were posted Thursday while Brzezinski was on air, but she did not respond as the show finished. She later tweeted a picture of a Cheerios box that displayed the message "Made For Little Hands."

The size of Trump's hands has been the subject of some ridicule since it was first brought up in a satirical magazine in 1988. Trump addressed the joke in a presidential primary debate in March 2016, saying, "there's no problem."

Asked for comment, MSNBC spokesperson Lorie Acio gave this statement: "It's a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job."

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued repeatedly Thursday that the president has been subject to scathing attacks on "Morning Joe" and elsewhere in the media, and that he had a right to fight back.

"I think that he's been very clear that when he gets attacked, he's going to hit back," Huckabee Sanders said at the daily press briefing. "I don't think that it's a surprise to anybody that he fights fire with fire."

Indeed, about two hours before the president's tweets, Brzezinski said on "Morning Joe" that "it's not normal behavior" for any leader to be tweeting about people's appearances, bullying, lying, undermining managers and throwing people under the bus.

On their Wednesday show, Brzezinski and Scarborough roundly mocked Trump for displaying in several of his golf resorts a fake Time Magazine cover featuring himself.

North Korean Minister: Trump Tweet Declared War

North Korea's top diplomat says President Donald Trump's tweet that leader Kim Jong Un "won't be around much longer" amounted to a declaration of war against his country.

Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters Monday that what he called Trump's "declaration of war" gives North Korea "every right" under the U.N. Charter to take countermeasures, "including the right to shoot down the United States strategic bombers even they're not yet inside the airspace border of our country."

Ri Yong also said that "all options will be on the operations table" for the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Ri referred to Trump's tweet Saturday that said: "Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"

(Published Monday, Sept. 25, 2017)

"That's needy," Brzezinski said on the show.

Huckabee Sanders said Trump receives "constant attacks," and noted "I'm a woman that's been attacked by this show, but I don't cry foul because of it."

She did not directly answer a question about Trump's longtime allegation, made without evidence and soon debunked, that former President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, saying only that "when the president gets hit, he's going to hit back harder."

"The White House that I grew up in was an amazing place. If it weren't Trump, it might be something to think about," Brzezinski told the magazine. "The mental picture is just fascinating, but the reality is just . . . no. No, no, no, no, no."

Trump's charged "blood" language about Brzezinski echoed his past criticism of former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who Trump denigrated during the presidential campaign. Trump accused Kelly of having had "blood coming out of her whatever" when she asked him a tough question as a debate moderator.

While many people took the comment to refer to mood swings associated with a woman's period, but he said he was referring to her nose.

Kelly now works for NBC News, whose parent company, NBCUniversal, owns both MSNBC and this station.

Earlier this week, Trump caught flak online for calling out Irish reporter Caitriona Perry during a phone call with the country's leader, saying, "She has a nice smile on her face, so I bet she treats you well."

Perry called the exchange in the Oval Office a "bizarre moment."

Trump Tightens Sanctions Against North Korea

President Trump is hitting North Korea with severe new sanctions and issuing an ultimatum to the world: If you do business with Kim Jong Un the United States will not do business with you.

(Published Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017)

First lady Melania Trump pledged during the campaign to combat cyberbullying. Her spokeswoman declined to comment to NBC News Thursday about the tweets targeting Brzezinksi, and said of the cyberbullying initiative that the first lady is "continuing to be thoughtful about her platform and looks forward to more announcements" in the future.